Sestina d'Inverno...

I love various poetic forms, things that impose structure on words, and I am particularly crazy over the sestina. This is one of my favourites, in which a Rochester winter sounds very like an Ottawa winter. I particularly love the line, "the wayward mind/Basks in some Yucatan of its own making."

Sestina d'Inverno by Anthony Hecht (1923-2004)

Here in this bleak city of Rochester,
Where there are twenty-seven words for "snow,"
Not all of them polite, the wayward mind
Basks in some Yucatan of its own making,
Some coppery, sleek lagoon, or cinnamon island
Alive with lemon tints and burnished natives,

( And O that we were there. )

Words...

The road to hell is paved with adverbs. - Stephen King.

My downfall is the word 'very'. I put the word into everything I write, maybe every paragraph. Then I go back and take it out again.

There is no instance where the sentence isn't better without 'very'.

Writer's Block: The Greenest Grass

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No difference. Life's not easy for anyone. It doesn't matter whether we are male or female; we're here to help each other through, regardless of gender.

Torchwood and Doctor Who: The future for Captain Jack...

BBC Radio's online "Newsbeat" posted text of an interview with John Barrowman in which he is asked whether he will be appearing in Doctor Who with the Eleventh Doctor. He replied:

Jack will always return to the Tardis if the doctor is in need to help save the planet or conquer an alien race trying to invade. That's all I can say. You know how secretive we are.

I take this to actually mean, "I'd love to, but they haven't asked me yet." But I like it that this is the official line - that the connection between the Doctor and Jack isn't being severed, that the TARDIS and the Doctor will always have their place in Jack's life.

Disorganized piracy...

Interesting about The Pirate Bay case - I found the verdict surprising. I liked the quote from one of the founders:

It's so bizarre that we were convicted at all and it's even more bizarre that we were [convicted] as a team. The court said we were organised. I can't get Gottfrid out of bed in the morning. If you're going to convict us, convict us of disorganised crime.